Intercooler Piping
 

is there a negative side to using silicone hosing rather than metal piping? my buddy has a 300gt vr4 and his uses mostly hoses. in the vr4's engine bay it is very crammed together and little room to work with. that and i dont have a welder. let me know what you thinks.


china

Other than the outrageous expense?

You may see the hoses getting out of alignment and coming too close to the engine or accessories or something. :dunno:

but performance wise, is there any difference, can one hold more psi than the other?

china

on some of the older cars, like the 300zx's they used some cheap silicone, actually rubber elbows and connectors and such, under high boost they would leither collapse because of vaccum, or expand and blow all out of shape after the turbo. i suggest aluminum, just because it flows air so nice and will last a long time

well to solve that problem i was hoping to get the hoses witht eh metal mesh that surrounds a layer of the hose. will that work any better/worse? as long as i run psi under 14lbs (atmospheric pressure) will this be a problem?

thanks
china

atmospheric pressure is 0psi.

DSM's are done the same way, its mostly all rubber hosing for the intake piping...i ran 17psi+ on it just fine.

Not to be an ass, but atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi at sea level. 0 psi of boost pressure = 14.7 psi. At zero pounds of boost, you are running the same pressure inside the hose or pipe as you are outside the hose or pipe. The one true difference between running silicone reinforced with fiberglass filiaments and aluminum piping is that aluminum will invariably last a bit longer. Both can succumb to chaffing, if they come in close contact with anything steel or iron (Both materials are softer, and therefor would wear away if rubbing). You might experience the ever-most negligible boost drop when using a hose as opposed to a metal pipe, because hoses, yes even reinforced silicone hoses, do swell under pressure. The less pressure wasted in swelling hoses, the more pressure you apply to your cylinders in a timely fashion. Just my two cents...

John

sorry, should have been more clear, atmospheric pressure is 0psig

i like the inputs. thanks for the help.